Forestry Horizons

OneOak project

myForest service

After feedback from our friends and partners we have undertaken a complete overhaul of our suite of websites.

They told us that our range of websites for the discrete elements of our work were good because they were aimed directly at different audiences. However, as we now have four websites (our main Sylva website plus three project websites) it became increasingly important to explain our work clearly as the relationship between the projects and Sylva was not always clear.

So we have worked hard to come up with a strong house style that allows the individuality of our projects to shine, yet links all the sites together. We hope that people new to the work of the Sylva Foundation, particularly those coming to us for the first time via one of our projects, will understand more easily the breadth and depth of our work.

This, our main site, has also been completely redesigned.  We hope that you like what you see.  We would be pleased to receive any comments or suggestions.

We have now completed our first quarter since becoming a charity in late March.  It has been an eventful and rewarding three months, with many of our ideas beginning to turn into reality.  Some of our most major developments are still some months away, but now may be a good time to review our progress and to share it with our friends and supporters.

Forestry Horizons – our think-tank

A number of scientific papers have been published and are available on our Forestry Horizons website.  A review of growing scattered broadleaves across Europe and the impacts of climate change has been co-written with eight other authors from across Europe. Sylva sponsored the proceedings of the Institute of Chartered Foresters’ National Conference titled “Trees, mutton or fuel?”.  These are also on our think-tank website.

Applied science project

We have made very positive progress with a number of high profile partners, including a Government research body and a top flight university, in developing a new applied science project.  We will announcing a new scholarship late in 2009.

myForest

Our innovative myForest project aiming to reconnect the wood chain was launched quietly as an R&D project in April.  We took on an IT Manager to help us take the project forward as interest has grown. Business users have started to sign up in ever greater numbers; the most intriguing being 20 fine furniture designer makers from across England in one evening.  Working closely with woodland owners in Oxfordshire we have signed many of these owners up to myForest, and worked closely with them to develop the services that we are able to supply.  These include an easy to use woodland inventory and online management planning software. A number of exciting developments over coming months are imminent, including the support of a core partner, and a joint partnership with a regional woodland project covering several counties in England.

OneOak project

Our new education project is aiming to connect people with growing trees for wood, and with using wood, by following the life story of one oak tree.  A large number of partners are now onboard.  We are working with a major Oxfordshire estate as the tree donor, and we have an innovative sawmill signed up, along with a furniture design college, many designer-makers, a research partner and a carbon footprint company.  We have the agreement of some six local primary schools to work with us closely in the project which is great news. We hope to launch the dedicated project website,  www.OneOak.info, in September 2009.

Forest School

We are pleased to be able to continue our support of the Oxfordshire Forest School Service. We are also putting a funding proposal together with the Institute of Outdoor Learning, the Forest School Special Interest Group, and the Forest Education Initiative for a national co-ordinator for England.  If successful, the post would be hosted by Sylva.

Communications

Our project websites combined now attract over 3000 visits every month.  Interest in this blog is modest but should grow as content develops!  We must be one of the few forestry organisations using Twitter – and embeded in our Sylva website news section, it provides a useful feature for headline news.  We had a foray in the national media when our letter, arguing the case for sustainable woodland management, was published in The Guardian in April.

Our thanks …

… go to all our friends, supporters and donors.

Gabriel Hemery, CEO

Sylva plants ‘message’ trees at Wood Festival – May 2009

Alistair Yeomans plants the message trees with help from festival goers

Our Director of Forestry, Alistair Yeomans, gave a tree talk and then, with the help of the festival goers who braved the rain, planted 10 special ‘message trees’ to celebrate Oxfordshire’s woodlands.  The Wood Festival was held at Braziers Park for the second year running.  A great line up of both local and international bands performed to over one thousand people on a stage constructed with locally sourced green oak and topped with a living Sedum roof.

Alistair described how sustainable woodland management, through working with and understanding our woodlands, can produce wood – nature’s ultimate truly sustainable and versatile material, while also providing a range of other essential benefits for man and nature.

The oak trees planted were 2m tall and five years old.  Each oak held a unique message promoting the benefits oftrees:

Air: trap pollutants, clean and condition the air that we breathe

Earth: stabilise and continually replenish soil nutrients

Water: clean water and can act as sustainable drainage systems which can help to prevent flooding

Fire: contribute through the burning of wood, a low carbon energy source

Wood: provide a range of natural wooden products and how wood can contribute to the ‘2016 zero carbon’ house

Ecology: every Oak tree provides a habitat for approximately 500 species such as butterflies (purple hairstreak), birds (woodpecker), mammals (dormice), plants (bluebells), fungi (essential decomposers)

Economy: provide a resource that can support our local economy and reduce our carbon footprint

Landscape: contribute to some of the beautiful landscapes of Oxfordshire

Climate: by avoiding deforestation and replanting the right tree in the right place, helping stabilise the global climate

 With the planting of the tenth tree, Alistair asked: “so what’s in an acorn?  Answer – One Oak.  He then introduced Sylva’s  new ‘OneOak’ project that will be launched later in 2009.

Sylva’s Chief Executive, Gabriel Hemery, then explained to festival goers the idea behind the OneOak project.  He said that “sustainable woodland management is a complex story.  Many people find it hard to understand why it is good to grow and fell trees for wood, even though wood is part of everyone’s lives.  The Sylva Foundation’s OneOak project will focus on one single oak tree.  We will bring the stories to life by demonstrating the real-life benefits of managing trees and using locally-produced wood.  We will celebrate the OneOak tree’s life, both as a living organism, and in what it provides for man and the environment after it is felled.  OneOak will be launched in late 2009.